Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/322

280 The Social, or Marsic War (as it is often called on account of the prominent part taken in the insurrection by the warlike Marsians) was a struggle that arose from the demands of the Italian allies for the privileges of Roman citizenship, from which they were wholly excluded. Their demands were stubbornly resisted by both the aristocratic and the popular party at Rome. Some, however, recognized the justice of these claims of the Italians. The tribune Livius Drusus championed their cause, but he was killed by an assassin. The Italians now flew to arms. They determined upon the establishment of a rival state. A town called Corfinium, among the Apennines, was chosen as the capital of the new republic, and its name changed to Italica. Thus, in a single day, almost all Italy south of the Rubicon was lost to Rome. The Etrurians, the Umbrians, the Campanians, the Latins, and some of the Greek cities were the only states that remained faithful.

The greatness of the danger aroused all the old Roman courage and patriotism. Aristocrats and democrats hushed their quarrels, and fought bravely side by side for the endangered life of the republic. The war lasted three years. Finally Rome prudently extended the right of suffrage to the Latins, Etruscans, and Umbrians, who had so far remained true to her, but now began to show signs of wavering in their loyalty. Shortly afterwards she offered the same to all Italians who should lay down their arms within sixty days. This tardy concession to the just demands of the Italians virtually ended the war. It had been extremely disastrous to the republic. Hundreds of thousands of lives had been lost, many towns had been depopulated, and vast tracts of the country made desolate by those ravages that never fail to characterize civil contentions.

In after-years, under the empire, the rights of Roman citizenship, which the most of the Italians had now so hardly won, were